Walter Sundberg

evil in modern thought: an alternativehistory of philosophy by susan neiman  princeton university press, 358 pages, $29.95 René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, begins his Meditations(1641) on the self and its place in the world by supposing that a demon, no less powerful than God, . . . . Continue Reading »

The question Ian Kershaw faces in the second volume of his massive biography is whether Hitler’s life has a coherent meaning for us, or whether it is as fragmented and partial as his earthly remains. His first volume, Hitler 1889“1936: Hubris (1998), covered Hitler’s early life and . . . . Continue Reading »

The Hitler of History by John Lukacs Knopf, 279 pages, $26 Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil by Ron Rosenbaum Random House, 427 pages, $30 In September 1948, Irving Kristol surveyed the current literature on Hitler and the Nazis in the pages of Commentary . He called this . . . . Continue Reading »

American Originals By Paul K. Conkin University of North Carolina Press. 336 pp. $18.95 In a sermon to the shareholders of the Virginia Company in 1622, John Donne, poet and Dean of St. Paul’s, discerned a divine purpose in the Company’s desire to settle the American wilderness: “You . . . . Continue Reading »

Andrew Delbanco, Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University, is a secular liberal with a very bad . . . . Continue Reading »

Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil. By Bernard McGinn Harper Collins 369 pp. $32.50 You have heard,” writes St. John in his epistles, “that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come; therefore we know that it is the last hour.” Who is Antichrist? . . . . Continue Reading »

The Churching of America, 1776–1990: Winners and Losers In Our Religious Economy by roger finke and rodney stark rutgers university press, 325 pages, $22.95 In mainline theological schools, divinity students are told a familiar tale about the church in modernity that goes something like this: The . . . . Continue Reading »

As modern religionists, we face a curious predicament when we think of the Devil. On the one hand, we know that the forests and glens of Western culture have been cleared of the spirits and goblins that frightened our ancestors. When we are sick, we take a pill. When we are scared by some . . . . Continue Reading »